Monster Hunter Tips for New Players

Monster Hunter Tips for New Players by SlyCaribou

Some of these are things you learn over time just by playing, others are things you pick up from forum posts when you’re trying to figure out the fastest way to get Purecrystals, or things you might hear a streamer mention. This isn’t really going to be in a particular order just going to make bullet points as I come up with them!

Hold A when combining items to make items faster. I played through all of Freedom Unite without knowing this.

Invincibility Frames or I-Frames only occur at the beginning of evades. And Try tongue but hole my Dark Souls brothers; but without Evade +1/2/3 the I-Frames in MH last a fraction as long as in Souls games. While you have good habits trying to roll THROUGH things instead of away from them, it’s extremely hard to do the larger the monster is without Evade+.

Staying on the ground and not getting up after being hit; in MH4U, can actually save your bacon.

Offline Steak Delivery is the new Kelbi quest; use this quest to pass the time quickly for your farm or Talisman Melding or w/e

Insect Glaive is deceptive, on one hand is a terrible weapon and on the other it’s an amazing weapon. A good user will keep their buffs running, and will know how to hold a juice to re-buff as soon as their super-sayian mode runs out. They will mount monsters when their Charge Blade buddies are ready to dunk, or when their GL friend has their WyvernBlast up, they’ll mount to reduce the effectiveness of a monster’s enrage, I.E. Teostra. But a bad user will run around for minutes at a time un-buffed completey missing their bug. They’ll trip and stagger teammates for the entire hunt. They’ll try to DPS without the red buff, instead of just getting the red buff. They’ll take the Glaive to fight large monsters like Mohran and Dala. They’ll just spam mounts instead of actually doing DPS… Insect Glaive is basically the new Longsword. It’s a very fun weapon but I would not recommend it to new users for online play, you are probably a large detriment to your group.

I see a lot of my Swaxe brothers stuck in MH3U mode, doing the sword-mode X A X A… vertical slash combo. While it’s great for cutting tails, the X X X combo with the double slash at the end has slightly higher motion values. Also it looks pretty dope. Still use vertical slashes to cut tails on standing/flying monsters, but make sure to use X X X more often!

Felyne Explorer food skill will not activate during gathering quests.

You can check a monster’s weakness if you can make their armor. Whatever their armor is weak to, is what the monster is weak to.

Shadowbox Gesture does damage to monsters.

VE Ticket? What is this? Also VE Tickets can come in Bronze/Silver/Gold/Cosmic flavors; these are directly correlated with your guild card background and what color it is, the better the ticket the better the rewards. Make sure you send Guild Cards BEFORE quests to get Unity points!

You can “give” palicos online. You don’t actually lose them, you are actually just SHARING them. You can find this option when in a group, before going on a quest, in your Start Menu

In the options, changing Camera Angle to Type 5 has helped my wife and I a lot; it makes the Camera default to an angle that’s WAY higher off the ground.

Your House Felyne can do the MeownsterHunter mini-game for you. I never figured the mini-game out myself, but using House Felyne has netted me a box full of Felyne Armor scraps. Make sure you’re using Palicos that are leveled and have superior skills; these are noted by having large icons, ITT; Instead of Melee Barrage you want Melee Onslaught. Also having a Palico with Unreal Blocking is mandatory IMO.

Some weapons take forever to put away, specifically folding weapons. This is a pain in the ass when trying to run away or climb up walls; with weapon equipped, roll toward a climbable wall and spam the A button. Your weapon will be magically and instantly sheathed while you grab onto and begin to climb the wall! Excellent tip for you fellow HBG users!

Check out weapon trees of your preferred weapon type to look ahead at what you want to build. Also note that building a high-tier weapon straight-up will cost more Zenny and often require rarer materials than building that weapon from a lower tier version farther down the weapon tree. If you don’t have all the parts to build it straight up, check to see if you have a low-tier weapon that you can upgrade into what you’re trying to build.

Press START, go to Status, press -> (Right on the directional pad) TWICE. This is your Skill Screen. These are the skills your armor/weapon/decorations/talisman are currently giving you. There is a bold yellow line, anything above that line is an activated skill. Skills are activated with multiples of 5, starting at 10, or -10. -10 being a bad or harmful skill; these appear in Red Lettering.

For example the Attack skill goes from Attack Down (L) at -20 to Attack Up (XL) at +25. So at -20/-15/-10/10/15/20/25. This means if you have +9 Attack you are not getting a skill. And if you have +24 Attack you still only have Attack Up (L) and not (XL); you need ONE additional point to get to (XL), to go from 24 to 25. This seems like a pain, and sometimes it is, however if you have a BAD skill, like Attack Down (Attack -10/-15/-20), it’s easy to gem this out with only a couple jewels/decorations. Let’s say you have -10 to Attack, so you have Attack Down (S). You need ONE Attack Up skill point which is just one gem/decoration/jewel, and you will have Attack -9; which means the bad skill is no longer active!

Taking an Energy Drink when you get put to sleep, and are stumbling around with bubbles coming off of you will negate the sleep!

Adamant Seeds will negate Defense Down, this is important to all of you trying to get Zelda items from Event Quests.

Picking up Wyvern Eggs from nests will make some monsters fly to that area within a minute or two. This makes fighting Rathalos and Rathian extremely easy because you never have to leave that area. AKA Stop following Rathian and Rathalos around the map.

Monsters stay in traps longer if they’re exhausted. Also some monsters are not affected by certain traps. I.E. Gyperceros with his Rubbery Hide cannot be shock trapped. And shock trapping a Zinogre at the wrong time will only make him more powerful.

Other monsters will look to eat when they are exhausted, Deviljho comes to mind. Bringing Sleep/Para/Poison Meat to these fights is crucial.

Monsters that fly will fly out of Pitfall traps when the trap wears off. A skilled hunter will be waiting with a flash bomb so their group can continue the beat down!

Khezu does not have any eyes, he cannot be flash bombed, this is also why no music plays during his fights; music only plays when a monster has seen you.

When on a wall, Press A without any directional input to jump directly backwards off of the wall.

SnS can use their advance attack, X+A (with weapon drawn), UP small ledges and will jump at the top. Meaning SnS users can jump UP ledges! Get to mounting, brothers!

Sheathe your weapon and Crouch to force your Palico into being passive.

Monsters are less likely to detect you when you’re crouching; but I believe this only applies if the monster hasn’t spotted you yet. This is mostly useful for certain Arena Quests where you want to utilize the Smoke Bomb; Smoke Bomb lasts ~45 seconds and makes it so only 1 monster will spot you.

Monsters can hurt and even kill each other.

Dung Bomb a monster that’s pinning you or a fellow Hunter.

There are a few exceptions, but most rare drops have a better overall chance of being carved in combination from break rewards; than just being captured. Make sure to check online that you understand the best method for hunting the monster of your choice! For example you probably want to capture Rathalos, but you definitely do not want to capture Brachy.

Gunners, aerial attacks automatically reload your guns, this is generally safer than reloading in a stationary position, but it depends on what’s going on. Utilize those small ledges!

Sleeping in the bed at Base Camp revives your Palicos to full HP.

Farcasters are important in G Rank, don’t underestimate this almost get-out-of-jail-free card!

And that’s all I can think of ATM.

Edit; Almost forgot. What weapon should I be building? What’s the best? That doc isn’t definitive but it should give you an idea of what to watch out for, also any weapon listed on there is a solid weapon and would definitely be a boon to any hunter.